The Armenian Studies Group brings together researchers, writers, artists, journalists, educators, students, photo-essayists, and creative practitioners working across all areas of Armenian Studies to share works in progress, test emerging ideas, and engage in stimulating, constructive conversation. At its heart, the Armenian Studies Group seeks to cultivate a supportive interdisciplinary environment where research and creative practice evolve through dialogue, curiosity, and collaborative reflection. If you want to join the Armenian Studies Group, click here.

This meeting (in English) will be chaired by Dr. Tamara Wilson.

Please RSVP by emailing mariana@armenianinstitute.org.uk - note that the event will be hosted online.

This talk introduces an ongoing project within Rudi Sayat Pulatyan’s doctoral research, a browser-based counter-map of Armenian memory in İcadiye, Üsküdar. It asks how digital heritage might make disappearance and uncertainty perceptible without turning memory into a complete, fixed archive or suggesting that visibility can undo historical erasure. In the prototype, vanished places fade in and out, while uncertain locations remain in motion. The project brings Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and critical design into conversation with oral history, sensory ethnography and participatory co-design. It considers how an interface might leave room for people to shape what is remembered, shared or withheld.

About the Speaker

Rudi Sayat Pulatyan is a PhD researcher in Design, Technology and Society at Koç University. His doctoral work brings HCI, critical design and ethnographic approaches to questions of memory, cultural heritage and disappearance. Building on his work with the Sounds of Silence oral history series and multicultural walking-tour mobile application as a member of the Hrant Dink Foundation team, he explores Armenian memory in Istanbul through an interactive counter-map focused on İcadiye, Üsküdar.